Sunday, 31 January 2016

It is the age of technology and
everything we do is related to technology or dependent on it in some way. The
advent of technology has hugely aided the way that people used to buy things.
Most people are now hooked on to internet shopping which is conducted online
via the numerous mobile shopping apps or retail apps that are present. It
allows them to browse and order the things they need sitting at home or at
office or on the go and the ordered product gets delivered right at their door
step. This helps in saving a lot of time and is convenient for most people who
are super busy in their lives or for people who are away from their home and
require to deliver the products.

One of the best things about conducting
business in an age which is primarily mobile centric is the fact that they have
a tool for almost everything that is needed. Be it streamlining certain
business opportunities or increasing the productivity of the retail app or
creating an easier user interface for your customers to deal with, you get a
tool for everything.

However to ensure that your app
is up and running it is very important that you need to test your appbefore
launching it so that you can ensure complete satisfaction on the customers’
end. It will also ensure that your app increases the profitability of your
business based on the ease and productivity and speed as well as security of
using your app. It is not enough to test your app only before you launch it.
Retail apps should be tested frequently even after being launched. This is due
to the fact that the retail apps are used by a huge number of customers each
day which makes it prone to development of bugs which may cause problems in the
functionality of the app.

The retail apps are usually multi
tier in nature and are connected to payment gateways and banking apps so that
the customers can make payment of the products they have bought. This ensures that your app should have top
notch security facilities so that it can avoid any kind of fraud that may cause
harm to the customers as well as to your reputation. This is one of the major
reasons to keep testing the retail appsfrequently so that the security
facility of the app is never compromised. It also has to safe keep the personal
details filled in by your customers while operating your retail app.

With the advancement of the
technology you also need to include more and more features in your retail apps
in order to enrich the shopping experience of your customers. This also initiates
the process of frequent testing of your retail app to make sure that the
prevailing functions are in sync with the new ones and work perfectly with the
new functions that are included in the retail app. Also your retail app will
have varied amount of traffic on each day which will obviously peak during the
holidays and occasions when people are prone to exchanging gifts. Frequent load testing of the retail app will make sure that your app doesn’t snag under
pressure and even if it does, it can bounce back to its normal functionality as
soon as possible without causing much distress to your customers.

We hope to have clarified the
need to test your retail apps frequently. It will help you to maintain a
healthy app and a loyal customer base.

Thursday, 28 January 2016

When it comes to software testing,
every testing organization seeks the help of automated testing tools as it
helps in saving both time and money. Software testing is an important part of
the whole software development procedure and the cost of the process affects
the whole cost of the project. This is why more and more organizations are
opting for open source tools rather than investing in commercial tools which
cost a lot of money, ultimately increasing the cost of the whole project.

There are a huge number of
automated testing tools available for the purpose of testing the various
aspects of the software; however, Selenium tops the list. Selenium is becoming
more and more popular each day with the testers and the organizations who
specialize in testing both functionality and GUI of the web based applications.
It is also effective as far as unit testing is concerned in case of JavaScript.
Another important fact behind the popularity of the selenium software is the
fact that it is supported by immense number of open source developers who are
regularly working on the further development of the tool on a regular basis.

So why is selenium a good weapon
to have in your arsenal? Here are some reasons to satiate your query.

Selenium is capable of working
on almost all the available operating systems which makes it far more popular
than the other available automated testing tools out there.

Being an open source automated
testing tool, selenium s far more cost effective that the commercial
counterparts which are available in the market.

Selenium supports various
languages like such as Python, Pearl, and Ruby, PHP, .NET (C #) and Java pretty
well. However, in order to perform your task with the selenium tool, knowing
just one of the many languages is more than enough.

Selenium is built in a way
where it doesn’t depend on any particular scripting language for its
workability which is a huge advantage when it comes to software testing. This
provides you with the liberty of writing the automated testing script in any
language you wish to or prefer.

Selenium is easy to work with
as it functions with equal ease on all the leading and popular browsers like Opera,
Safari, Chrome, IE 6, 7, 8 or Mozilla Firefox.

Supported by Google, Selenium
is regularly developed by a team of professional and dedicated developers who
are trying to make it better every day.

When it comes to exerting of
frameworks that revolve around Object oriented programming such as Keyword
Driven, Data driven and Hybrid, there are no automated tools which can match up
to selenium.

Selenium is very well
integrated with various open source frameworks like TestNG, JUnit, NUnit and so
on which are popular in the software industry.

Selenium proves to be a huge
help when it comes to testing software which involves multiple machines or
multiple browsers in different machines at the same time. Selenium helps in
saving both time and money as it allows easy workability on various different
machines at the same time thus allows you to complete large projects which have
a limited period of time for completion.

What are you still waiting for?
Get selenium in your arsenal and get all the advantages of this awesome tool to
test your web based applications now!

Wednesday, 27 January 2016

To make a mobile
app popular and profitable in the longer run, businesses must get its user
interface (UI) and user experience (UX) tested thoroughly. The businesses
further need to test the app using real devices and under real user conditions.
Most businesses use emulators and simulators to assess the application’s
functionality and performance across a variety of devices without investing in
real devices. But the emulators often fail to provide detailed information
about the application’s performance on a specific device or in a particular
user environment. That is why; it has become essential for enterprises to
explore ways to test the mobile app under real world conditions using various
devices, platforms, users, networks and test configurations.

Exploring
Options to Test Your Mobile App under Real User Conditions

Field
Testing

The field
testing model requires businesses to deploy testers in field. The deployment
will enable the testers to assess the mobile app across a wide range of
networks and service providers. For instance, the testers can assess the
application’s functionality and performance under a number of network
connections including 2G, 3G, 4G, Wi-Fi and cellular. Likewise, they can test
the application with no or poor network connectivity, switch from one network
to another, and identify the hot spots and dead spots.

However, the
testers have to use user scenarios and mobile persona additionally to effectuate
field testing. These two techniques will help testers to make the tests more
realistic and obtain more reliable test results. As a fictitious identity,
mobile personal represents a group of users who will use the mobile app. When
the testers are familiar with the targeted users of the app, it becomes easier
for them to simulate their actions and behaviours realistically. Further, they
can create a variety of test ideas by keeping in mind the targeted user group.

On the other
hand, user scenario, as a narrative, describes the usage of the mobile app, and
how it fits into the lifestyle of users. The testers have to identify scenarios
according to individual members of the targeted user group. They can further
customize the user scenarios based on mobile persona. On the whole, the testers
need to combine mobile persona and user scenarios to understand how different
users will use the mobile app, and test the app effectively in various
contexts.

User Testing

As its name
implies, the real world testing model involves real users in the mobile testing
process. A business can release the mobile app to diverse users to get it
evaluated on a wider variety of devices, platforms, networks and environments.
Further, the feedback and suggestion received from real users will help the
enterprise to deliver a high quality mobile application. Each business also has
option to choose from a number of user testing methods. Some of these methods
involve selected end users, whereas others emphasize on in-depth auditing of
the application’s usability and user experience.

A business can
always save money by getting the application tested by people selected
randomly. The randomly selected users will use the application, and share their
views and feedback. Despite being informal, the testing technique helps businesses
to get relevant test results. Also, an enterprise has option to share the
mobile app with diverse users through an online platform, and get the usability
testing performed remotely. It can further pay the tester for the bugs
identified by him, or provide a detailed survey questionnaire. The developers
can evaluate the feedback and suggestions shared by the remote users, and take
the required actions to make the mobile app flawless.

A business also
has option to get the mobile app testing by a seasoned user testing
professional. The professional will audit the application’s usability and user
experience thoroughly, and provide his feedback along with identifying the
defects. The enterprise can further deploy different user testing professionals
to get the app tested based on diverse thought processes. Alternatively, the business can also invite
end users to visit its in-house usability lab and test the mobile application,
while being observed by the user testing professional.

Many enterprises
nowadays opt for crowd-sourced testingto identify all flaws in an application,
with reduced testing time and cost. But a business has to consider several
factors while making the application available to real users for testing. It is
always important for the business to pick the right real world testing option,
and implement a custom strategy by keeping in mind the pros and cons of the option.

Tuesday, 26 January 2016

As technology
is advancing, the future is becoming more and more inclined on its use. The
case is no different in the healthcare industry where the professionals are
becoming more dependent on the use of technology to save data about the
patients as well as the various medical staff that are present for serving
these patients. More and more technology is being used in healthcare for the
purpose of storing information and integrating various data from various
resources to ensure that the patients get top service without much hassle. This
makes software testing an important part of healthcare software development in
order to ensure that the data are safe and software are efficient to handle
such huge and complex process.

It is quite
obvious that the healthcare industry requires saving a lot of information such
as medical plans, enrolments and annual contracts that are required to be
recorded for a long period of time and are regularly updated. This requires the
healthcare apps to be pretty complex in nature and containing multiple tiers.
These can lead to complexities related to data integration which needs to be
resolved before providing the software to the professionals to be used without
any problems. Here comes the role of software testing in healthcare.

Software
testing plays a role in the healthcare industry in order to ensure that the
huge multi tier system is up and running at all times and does not succumb
under pressure. It also guarantees quick comeback of the systems even if it
snags.

Healthcare
industries often have to face a huge surge of traffic inflow in case of any
calamities or mishaps which will automatically increase the load on the
software system used by it. Software testing ensures that the software performs
equally well even in such cases.

Healthcare
industries often have to face prolonged period of work without any possible
break which is at times accompanied by an increased amount of load. This is
extended to the software as well. The role of software testing in healthcare is
to make sure that the software performs brilliantly during these prolonged work
periods.

Software
testing makes sure that the system integration in the healthcare industry
doesn’t cause any major problems. Healthcare industry often requires system
integration for the collaboration of data or in order to maintain a constant
flow of data between systems so that the records are well maintained and the
system runs smoothly.

Impacts
of cross system on the applications used in the healthcare industry requires
software testing for checking.

Software testing plays an important role in the healthcare industry by checking the
interdependency of the various software which are frequent in the industry to
ensure that they are functioning smoothly and causes no problems.

Healthcare
industry uses software to store a lot of vital and personal information of the
patients which if breached and hacked into can give rise to fatal consequences.
Software testing helps in maintaining the security of these various systems
used.

Software
testing helps in maintain an easy user interface of the applications used in
healthcare so that they can be handles by people who are not pro at the
utilization of same.

These are some of the top most
methods by which software testing helps the healthcare industry by helping the
developers to create apps that are completely secure in nature and will help
the professionals to save all the data and integrate the various files which
would take a lot of labor if done in a manual manner.

Sunday, 24 January 2016

A gradual
increase is being noted in the number of businesses switching from scripted
testing to exploratory testing. The conventional scripted testing approach requires
the active test cases to be designed in advance, with clearly defined processes
and expected results. The predesigned tests are used by testers to compare the
actual test results with expected results. So the testers must be provided with
adequate information to execute the tests and interpret the test results
effectively.

But exploratory
testing approach emphasizes on concurrent test designing and execution. It
further requires businesses to deploy skilled software testers, and allows
testers to become more imaginative and exploratory. While performing
exploratory testing, the QA professionals have autonomy to decide what tests to
perform next, and how to prioritize tests due to time constraints. So a
business can avail a number of benefits by adopting the modern software testing
approach.

What Makes
Businesses Switch from Scripted Testing to Exploratory Testing?

Defects are Found Quickly

The predesigned
test scripts restrict professionals’ imagination and creativity. When the
testers have adequate information about the software to be tested and use the
predesigned test scripts, they do not come up with fresh and innovative ideas.
Exploratory testing requires them to design and execute tests concurrently. So
they can learn and improve continuously, while coming up with new ideas and
innovative ways to solve problems.

Accommodate Individual Testing Approaches

Exploratory
testing approach requires enterprises to deploy skilled and experienced QA professionals. So each tester can analyze the specific problem in a particular
way. The members of the team can further suggest various ways to test a
particular feature or functionality of the software. So the same aspect of the application can be
tested in a number of ways. The different approaches effectuate testing, and
help testers to identify all flaws in the software.

Allow Testers to Control the Testing Process

The scripted
testing approach differentiates the process of test design and test execution.
So an enterprise has option to deploy different teams to design and execute
tests. Also, the testers need adequate product information and detailed
business requirements to execute the tests effectively. So the testers fail to
execute tests if the test cases are not designed in advance or they are not
familiar with the application. But exploratory testing enables testers to
design and execute tests concurrently. They can easily gather the required
information, and design and test cases in each situation.

Freedom to Follow Leads

Nowadays testers
have to test all aspects of the software within a shorter amount of time. So
they find it daunting to read, understand and execute predesigned test scripts.
Most modern testers prefer designing and executing tests in parallel without
referring to any predesigned test cases. Further, they want to deploy the
limited time in finding bugs instead of reading and understanding test cases.
The absence of predefined constraints further enables testers to identify bugs
in the software by following all promising leads.

Many businesses
nowadays adopt agile methodology to reduce software testing time and cost
significantly. But the delivery cycles in agile project is extremely short.
Further, the developers and testers have to collaborate with each other deliver
a flawless software application. So the businesses are no longer required to
deploy skilled professionals to make test plans, design test cases, and manage
defects in the software. When a business adopts exploratory testing approach,
it becomes easier for it to design and execute test cases concurrently without
deploying any additional professionals. So exploratory testing helps businesses
to reap benefits of agile project management methodologies.

On the whole,
the exploratory testing approach is completely different from conventional
scripted testing approach. But companies like Microsoft have proved that both testing
approaches are compatible with each other, and can also be used on a single
project. So a business has option to either adopt exploratory testing model or
use both testing models simultaneously.

Tuesday, 5 January 2016

Nowadays testers
have to perform both functional and non-functional testingto assess all
aspects of a software application effectively.
As a type of non-functional testing, security testing is performed to
check if the application is vulnerable to security attacks and effective in
protecting information and maintain functionality in case of malware attacks.
But the testers need adequate skills, experience and domain expertise to
effectively check if the application is 100% secure. Many enterprises prefer hiring
certified security testing professionals to identify and eliminate critical
security threats. A business can always reap a number of benefits by hiring a
certified security tester.

5 Reasons
Why Businesses Must Hire Certified Security Testers

1) Skill and Experience Level

Normally,
security testing certifications can be divided into three broad categories,
i.e., entry level, intermediate level, and expert level. Each tester must meet
certain requirements to obtain the specific certification. For instance, the
tester must know security principles, best practices, test automation tools,
and latest technology to obtain entry-level security testing certification.
Likewise, he must have adequate security testing knowledge and experience to
obtain more advanced certifications. So you can easily determine the tester’s
experience, expertise and domain knowledge based on the certification.

2) Comprehensive Training

Each tester
further needs to go through a comprehensive credentialing process. As part of
the process, he has to undergo a detailed training program that covers all
aspects of software security features and testing. Also, the professional has
to pass the final examination to obtain the cyber security certification. So
the certification indicates that the tester has learned all aspect of security testing, and obtained the certification by clearing the final test. The
training and knowledge make the certified security testers score over other
software testing professionals.

3) Up-to-Date Knowledge

The tester is further required to renew the
cyber security certification at regular intervals. Normally, the cyber security
certification must be renewed every 3 to 4 years. The tester has to pass a
current test to renew his credentials. So it becomes essential for testers to
keep their knowledge up-to-date and earn education credits continuously to
renew the security testing certification successfully. You can always expect
the certified security testers to know the latest trends, tools and best
practices in software security testing.

4) Ability to think like a Hacker

Nowadays,
programmers have to address security issues and threats without any delay. So
the security testers have to collaborate with the developers consistently to
get the security problems fixed as they occur. The certification helps testers
to analyze the evolving security threats with the mindset of a hacker. They can
further assess the security features of the application during development to
eliminate security threats in future. The testers can further perform security
tests during various phases of development to identify and eliminate the
weaknesses that increases the application’s vulnerability to evolving security
threats.

5) In-depth Understanding of Tools used by Cyber
Criminals

Nowadays cyber
criminals use a variety of advanced tools to attack software applications. The
testers must be familiar with the tools used by hackers to effectively
eliminate the security threats. The certification program will help testers to
understand the tools and techniques used by programmers for criminal purposes.
So they can easily identify the source of the security threat, and suggest the
best way to eliminate the security threat or prevent the security attack. They further need to keep track of the latest
trends in security testing as part of the certification renewal process.

While
outsourcing software testing, each business needs to check a testing service
provider deploys certified security testers. It needs to ensure that the
security testing is performed by a certified and experienced tester to enhance
the software’s reliability and integrity by eliminating all security threats.

Sunday, 3 January 2016

Nowadays, the
user experience delivered by a mobile app determines its popularity and
profitability. While testing a mobile app, the testers need to identify and
eliminate all bugs that affect the application’s user interface (UI) and user
experience (UX). But testers have to identify and eliminate all defects in a
mobile app within a shorter amount of time. That is why; it becomes essential
for QA professionals to avoid a number of common but critical mobile app
testing mistakes.

5 Mobile App
Testing Mistakes Each Tester Must Avoid

1) Not Focusing on Mobile Experience

Many reports
have highlighted that most users download mobile apps based on their looks
rather than functionality. So the testers must focus on testing the app’s user
interface (UI) thoroughly and repeatedly. It is also important for testers to
allocate more testing time to UI than other functionality. They must evaluate
the UI thoroughly to ensure that the mobile app looks plain and simple, while
allowing users to find information or perform an action in a quicker and more
convenient way. They can even check if the UI design can save users’ time by
providing special features like one-click facility, automatic spelling checks,
and infinite scrolling.

2) Ignoring Factors Affecting Cross Browser Compatibility

Each mobile app
must deliver quality experience across many devices and browsers to keep the
users engaged. But testers often fail to identify the factors that affect the
cross browser compatibility of the application. While testing a mobile website,
the professionals must try to find out the reason behind such UX bugs. Often
the cross browser compatibility of a mobile app is affected due to use of
specific scripting language, or add-ons or plug-ins. Likewise, the document
object model (DOM) of the application may prevent it from performing seamlessly
across many browsers. The testers can always use specialized tool to assess the
app’s cross-browser compatibility more efficiently.

3) Not Assessing Quality of Links

The quality of
links will have a huge impact on the user experience of mobile web apps. But
testers often forget to assess the quality of links while testing a mobile website. They must remember that there are a number of factors that can make a
hyperlink outdated or broken. For instance, changes made to the website’s
structure or external resources, any document or old web pages removed from the
site, or any changes made to a URL can cause broken links. So the testers must
identify the broken or outdated links, and report them along with the root
cause. They can even consider using a variety of tools to identify the broken
or outdated links more efficiently.

4) Inadequate Usability Testing

Nowadays, each
app must deliver richer user experience to become profitable in the longer run.
But often testers fail to perform adequate usability testing due to constraints
related to time and resources. The inadequate usability testing can have a huge
impact on the application’s user experience, hence its popularity and
profitability. That is why; the mobile app testing strategy must focus
extensively on usability testing. The testers can further use a variety of
tools to identify and eliminate the bugs affecting the application’s user
experience. Likewise, they must help developers to fix the UX bugs effectively
by providing detailed and specific information about the defects.

5) Not Mixing Real Devices and Emulators Properly

The emulators
make it easier for testers to assess the mobile app’s functionality and
performance across a variety of devices without investing in many real devices.
But the emulators cannot provide adequate information about how the app
performs on a specific device or a particular carrier network. So the testers
still need real devices to gather more relevant information about the
application’s quality, performance and user experience. However, it is always
important for the testers to maintain a proper balance between real devices and
emulators in the testing environment. They can always consider combining the
emulators with a load testing tool to assess how the application performs under
various loads.

The testers must
remember that various mobile apps cannot be tested by implementing a single
testing strategy. It is always important for them to make and implement custom
test plans according to the type, usage and functionality of the mobile app.
The custom mobile app testing strategy will help them to avoid a number of
fatal mistakes.